posted at 10:41 pm on May 20, 2014 by Allahpundit

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said on Tuesday there has been talk about scheduling a separate floor vote on the ENLIST Act after Republican leadership blocked the bill from coming to the floor as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act — a defense policy bill.

The bill , introduced by Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), would allow undocumented immigrants who entered the country before they were 15 years old to join the military. After their service, these immigrants would be eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship if they were honorably discharged…

When asked if Republicans planned to allow a standalone vote on the ENLIST Act on the House floor, Boehner said, “There have been discussions about that.”

***

With border authorities in South Texas overwhelmed by a surge of young illegal migrants traveling by themselves, the Department of Homeland Security declared a crisis this week and moved to set up an emergency shelter for the youths at an Air Force base in San Antonio, officials said Friday.

After seeing children packed in a Border Patrol station in McAllen, Tex., during a visit last Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Monday declared “a level-four condition of readiness” in the Rio Grande Valley. The alert was an official recognition that federal agencies overseeing borders, immigration enforcement and child welfare had been outstripped by a sudden increase in unaccompanied minors in recent weeks…

The children are coming primarily from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, making the perilous journey north through Mexico to Texas without parents or close adult relatives. Last weekend alone, more than 1,000 unaccompanied youths were being held at overflowing border stations in South Texas, officials said.

The flow of child migrants has been building since 2011, when 4,059 unaccompanied youths were apprehended by border agents. Last year more than 21,000 minors were caught, and Border Patrol officials had said they were expecting more than 60,000 this year. But that projection has already been exceeded.

Jessica L. Wright, the department’s acting undersecretary for personnel and readiness, described the immigrants, known as DREAMers, as “some of the best and brightest in America that we could capitalize on.”

Wright said the decision would come by summer’s end and involved the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the White House.

***

The federal government granted temporary work permits to roughly 10 million foreign workers from 2000 to 2013, effectively boosting the supply of new workers by roughly 20 percent per year.

Only 650,000 of the guest workers were hired for agricultural jobs, according to the Tuesday report by the Congressional Research Service. That’s only seven percent of the inflow.

But roughly 3.1 million university-trained foreigners got permits to work in the professional sector for up to 10 years, said the report, titled “Selected Statistics on Immigrant and non-Immigrant Admissions since 2000.”…

“There are a lot of things he could do to demonstrate that we can have more confidence in his administration to implement an immigration reform bill the way we pass it,” Boehner said, but did not list specific ways.

***

“Nobody trusts the president, and that’s just the reality,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.), a Republican who has written a bill that beefs up border security and offers a path to legal status for illegal immigrants. “Can the president re-establish his credibility in the next two months with the House, with the American people or with our allies? No. I think he can hopefully not make it worse.”

Boehner has not said how Obama could restore trust among Republicans who have watched angrily as he has repeatedly delayed parts of the healthcare law without congressional approval. Aides say, however, that he could begin by working with GOP members on some of their other priorities, such as the Skills Act, which the House passed to overhaul federal job-training programs.

A House GOP leadership aide said Obama could also help his cause by publicly ruling out unilateral action to halt deportations and by promising to enforce any new immigration law fully in the way Congress intended.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, offering his first public hints at the outcome of the review he’s conducting at Obama’s behest, said Thursday that the so-called Secure Communities program needs a “fresh start.” He suggested it might be revamped to focus on people who actually have been convicted of crimes, not just those arrested or booked…

The program allows Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to run fingerprints of anyone booked for a local or state crime through a federal database for immigration violations. If there’s a match, ICE can ask local police and sheriffs to detain the person, and then decide whether to deport them.

Testifying before a Senate Subcommittee hearing in Chicago on “Immigrant Enlistment” that Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) chaired, Gutierrez said that “every institution in America, including our military, must work around the inability of our federal government and the U.S. House of Representatives to fix our immigration system.”

He also pushed the Navy and Marines to allow U.S. citizens who are married to illegal immigrants to enlist at a hearing in which Durbin called on the Pentagon to start enlisting DREAMers.

***

In a recent commentary, National Institute for Latino Policy President Angelo Falcón wrote, “Although immigration reform affects about 15 percent of the total Latino population, as a public policy issue it now occupies almost all the Latino policy agenda, sucking up, as one colleague recently put it, all the oxygen on Latino issues.”

Falcón questions whether the continued debate about the status of the undocumented population is a distraction from the needs of the much larger pool of Hispanics who are citizens. The Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project estimates that there are 11.7 undocumented migrants in the U.S. By comparison, the U.S. Census Bureau reports that the overall U.S. Hispanic population is 53 million…

Still, Beltrán sees one significant by-product of the drawn-out immigration debate. “We now have a younger generation who has become politicized. They are savvy, skeptical, and optimistic all at the same time. I think this will have long-term consequences, because they have a sense of their own power.”

This “immigration generation” will someday turn their energy and focus to other issues, argues Beltrán. “These young people are participating in civil disobedience and so much activism in their 20s,” she said. “Imagine what they are going to be doing in their 40s – with law degrees!”

Breaking on Hot Air

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

Off the topic of 80’s hair bands, this shizzit with Michael Jace of The Shield is unbelievable… I love that show, and that character. Just trying to figger out what would make a man shoot his wife of ten years in front of their children… the only thing I got is infidelity…

OK, fess up… WTF are you, anyway? Doorman at the Whiskey 1978-1983? Dee Snyder’s cousin or roadie? Punky’s little brother Snotty? How do you have all this stuff?

ROFL…

PointnClick on May 21, 2014 at 3:02 AM

I went to metal shows in the late ’80s. Some of the songs I have, like Seduce and Kingdom Come, some I remember from Headbangers Ball or reading/hearing about elsewhere, and some I’ve gotten from looking at the Recommended Videos on the right. =)

Hey Grimes is just being your typical neo-feminazi. She makes the claim that she doesn’t need any man (President or not) telling her how to vote. It is an attitude that sits well with the stupid shrill base of women who only vote in support of their birth canals and not the other issues. As if national security, good jobs, the economy, the well-being of future generations are not more “women’s issues” than the ability to kill off a child in the third trimester.

As for Mika’s absurd comments, if Grimes took money from the DNC or any other Dem organization, she is not an independent. You dance with the one who brought you.

Something a few of the Tea Party/Truecon people need to keep in mind irt the GOP.

Bradky on May 21, 2014 at 7:00 AM

Something Boehner and the RINO caucus need to remember as they enjoy the benefits of being in the majority in the House. They wouldn’t be there if it were not for real conservatives holding their nose and joining forces with the surrender caucus.

SOB If you have no interest in an old man’s RANT
* I will be observing my diamond centennial in a few months.
* There is only me (other than my 21yr old ragdoll (F) cat.
* I spent 30+ yrs in the military.
* I have always worked (SSN at age 11 when the only reason
you had one was because you owed the government.
* The only years I did not contribute were because I
was in a cz.
* I could have requested disability (80%+) but there was a
long line because of continual wars and they needed it more.
* If I were to have received disability, I would have been
required to report to the VA for all treatment that involved
those disibilities.
* The nearest VA is 100 for one and 150m for the other with no
transportation other than bus/cab for an appointment that may
tell you that no one is available at this time – come again
next month.
* My thought is that the VA has been covered for many years to
funnel money to the “approved” people and be dammed those that
they are “by law” suposed to serve.
* I have no further care about what eventualy happens. My time is
done

I hear ya wolf. I thought once about using a local VA clinic for medical issues and decided “why ask for trouble?”. Depending on government for healthcare is like hoping the mail I’ve been looking for arrives on time…usually doesn’t happen.

The push by Zuckerburg et,al. for amnesty is all about creating a cheap labor underclass and voters who will vote democratic in perpetuity…All at the expense of American labor.

“The idea that we need to allow in more workers with science, technology, engineering, and math (“STEM”) background is an article of faith among American business and political elite.

But in a new report, my Center for Immigration Studies colleague Karen Zeigler and I analyze the latest government data and find what other researchers have found: The country has well more than twice as many workers with STEM degrees as there are STEM jobs. Also consistent with other research, we find only modest levels of wage growth for such workers for more than a decade. Both employment and wage data indicate that such workers are not in short supply….”

Kingston and Perdue who will face each other in a primary runoff both signed the no amnesty FAIR pledge. You won’t see that mentioned anywhere in the MSM. Maybe they figure amnesty will pass this year so they won’t have to worry about taking a vote on it during their 1st term. Kingston is backed by the Chamber and there is no way they would support an anti amnesty candidate.

“Reports by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the RAND Corporation, the Urban Institute, and the National Research Council have all found no evidence that STEM workers are in short supply.

PBS even published an opinion piece based on the EPI study entitled, “The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage: How Guest Workers Lower U.S. Wages.” This is PBS, mind you, which is as likely to publish something skeptical of immigration as it is to publish something skeptical of taxpayer subsidies for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

RAND’s analysis looked backward in time and found, “Despite recurring concerns about potential shortages of STEM personnel . . . we did not find evidence that such shortages have existed at least since 1990, nor that they are on the horizon.”

In an article entitled “The Science and Engineering Shortage Is a Myth” for the March issue of The Atlantic, demographer Michael Teitelbaum of Harvard Law School summarizes the literature on STEM.

“No one has been able to find any evidence indicating current widespread labor market shortages or hiring difficulties in science and engineering occupations that require bachelor’s degrees or higher,” he points out. Teitelbaum is one of the nation’s leading experts on STEM employment, former vice president of the Sloan Foundation (a philanthropic institution essentially devoted to STEM education), and author of Falling Behind? Boom, Bust, and the Global Race for Scientific Talent, just published by Princeton University Press.

In looking at the latest government data available, my co-author and I found the following: In 2012, there were more than twice as many people with STEM degrees (immigrants and native-born) as there were STEM jobs — 5.3 million STEM jobs vs. 12.1 million people with STEM degrees.

Only one-third of natives who have a STEM degree and have a job work in a STEM occupation.

There are 1.5 million native-born Americans with engineering degrees not working as engineers, as well as half a million with technology degrees, 400,000 with math degrees, and 2.6 million with science degrees working outside their field.

In addition, there are 1.2 million natives with STEM degrees who are not working.

Meanwhile, less than half of immigrants with STEM degrees work in STEM jobs.

In particular, just 23 percent of all immigrants with engineering degrees work as engineers.

Of the 700,000 immigrant STEM workers allowed into the country between 2007 and 2012, only one-third got a STEM job, about one-third got a non-STEM job, and about one-third are not working.

Wage trends are one of the best measures of labor demand. If STEM workers were in short supply, wages would be increasing rapidly. But wage data from multiple sources show little growth over the last 12 years.

We found that real hourly wages (adjusted for inflation) grew on average just 0.7 percent a year from 2000 to 2012 for STEM workers, and annual wages grew even less — 0.4 percent a year.

Wage growth is very modest for almost every category of STEM worker as well.

So if there is a superabundance of native and immigrant STEM workers and little wage growth, and STEM immigration already exceeds the absorption capacity of the STEM labor market, why are there calls to allow in even more?

I hear ya wolf. I thought once about using a local VA clinic for medical issues and decided “why ask for trouble?”. Depending on government for healthcare is like hoping the mail I’ve been looking for arrives on time…usually doesn’t happen.

knutsandvolts on May 21, 2014 at 7:37 AM

I haven’t had a lot of dealings with VA helathcare, but what I have had was average to above average.

I have no complaints.

But obviously, this administration is using the VA as a model for its obamacare death panel. That is what is happening, and I am sure the word has filtered down that if you “See Something? Don’t Say Something.” Nice family you got there. Be a shame something was to happen to them.

Why is the US Chamber of Commerce & Bill Gates et,al. pushing amnesty using this bogus lie of a need for highly skilled foreign workers?

“So if there is a superabundance of native and immigrant STEM workers and little wage growth, and STEM immigration already exceeds the absorption capacity of the STEM labor market, why are there calls to allow in even more? The answer, put simply, is greed and politics.

The businesses that want more immigration would get more workers to choose from, holding wages in check and increasing their bargaining power over their employees. What’s not to like? The Republicans listen to their corporate donors in Silicon Valley and elsewhere and respond by promising to increase STEM immigration even further.

The motives of Democrats are little more complicated.

They like the corporate donations as well, but even better they see increasing STEM immigration as a bargaining chip to get what they really want from Republicans — amnesty for illegal immigrants. Democratic representative Luis Gutierrez has said as much.

Democrats also know that Indian and East Asian immigrants who comprise most foreign STEM workers are generally liberal in their policy preferences and vote overwhelming Democratic — a nice bonus.

In addition to the collusion of both parties, there are other reasons why the idea of a STEM worker shortage is given credence despite all the evidence to the contrary.

First, the poor average performance of American high-school students in science and math relative to other First World countries creates the perception that we are not producing enough scientists and engineers. Low average test scores relative to other countries are certainly troubling but, as the EPI study mentioned above makes clear, this does not prevent us from producing a large number of high-quality students. America is a huge country and the STEM workforce is small. It grew by only 1 million in the last 12 years. This is less than 5 percent of the more than 20 million students who got a bachelor’s degree over this time period, to say nothing of the millions more who earned a graduate degree.

Another reason that the “we need more STEM workers” argument is taken as gospel is that it is endorsed by many of America’s most prominent billionaire entrepreneurs, such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.

Their vested interest in holding wages down and improving their bargaining power vis-à-vis their workers goes unmentioned by the media that tend to just transcribe their press releases on the subject.

There is also the “xenomania,” to use my colleague Mark Krikorian’s word, of many opinion leaders — the idea that immigrants are better than the average American.

As I have pointed out elsewhere, immigrants are not more entrepreneurial than natives, they are not more likely to have a job, they are not less likely to commit crimes, and they are not less likely to use welfare.
Nonetheless, for different reasons some on both the right and the left believe such things are the case and reflexively support increasing immigration.

There are a number of problems with allowing ever-more foreign STEM workers into the country.

First, the argument for doing so is deceptive and dishonest.

Second, these are still mostly middle-class jobs and an enormous number of American students getting STEM degrees are not finding STEM jobs. Over time this fact along with a lack of wage growth can only deter Americans kids from going into these fields.

Third, STEM workers are vital to national defense and having a large share of our STEM workforce be foreign-born has important national-security implications.

Fourth, allowing American industry to become dependent on foreign sources of skilled labor makes industry increasingly indifferent to any problems in our schools, making it less likely we will fix them….”

What’s depressing is seeing all the lies coming out of a government we once trusted. When caught in a lie, not one fesses up and never gets held accountable. I’ve always told my kids “tell the truth, even if it hurts”. Then they hear this lying crap coming out of elected officials 24/7. What are you going to do?

Pay back taxes – LIE
Pay a fine – most won’t
Wait in the back of the line – LIE
Secure the border first – LIE
Can’t find workers – LIE
Beefed up nforcement – LIE

Wigglesworth on May 21, 2014 at 7:57 AM

Collusion between the parties and lies aka propaganda perpetuated by the media to manipulate and confuse the citizenry while a centralized federal power acts against the law and the will of the citizenry…We have become the northernmost region of the EU…

I don’t remember voting for that.

Deluge your representatives at the local and federal level…burn up the phones,write letters and emails and inform your neighbors.

What’s depressing is seeing all the lies coming out of a government we once trusted. When caught in a lie, not one fesses up and never gets held accountable. I’ve always told my kids “tell the truth, even if it hurts”. Then they hear this lying crap coming out of elected officials 24/7. What are you going to do?

knutsandvolts on May 21, 2014 at 8:11 AM

The truth will always win out.

Keep teaching your kids the right way and tell them in order to correct corruption…the corruption must first be exposed.

I enjoy your posts too, KJ, but I admit I don’t always read all that I should. QOTD is pretty hard to keep up with during busier times. Plus I am not an avid music lover so I’m skipping a lot of late night offers.

:The federal government is piecing together a sweeping national “biosurveillance” system that will give bureaucrats near real-time access to Americans’ private medical information in the name of national security, according to Twila Brase, a public health nurse and co-founder of the Citizens Council for Health Freedom.
The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response is currently seeking public comment on a 52-page draft of the proposed “National Health Security Strategy 2015-2018” (NHSS).

The deadline for comment is 5 pm EST on May 21st. (See Draft National Health Security Strategy 2015-2018.pdf)

Good advice and thanks wc. Keeping track of what’s true and what’s BS is becoming tougher and wears a person out. I do a lot of reading and just cannot keep up with what’s true and what’s not true these days.

Good advice and thanks wc. Keeping track of what’s true and what’s BS is becoming tougher and wears a person out. I do a lot of reading and just cannot keep up with what’s true and what’s not true these days.

knutsandvolts on May 21, 2014 at 8:40 AM

Most of the hoi polloi can’t keep up…an inevitable result of the 24/7 news cycle world we live in.

Thankfully…there is the net and there are blogs which allow consumers to follow particular issues in depth since the traditional news media has like much of congress abrogated their responsibility to chase what is either fashionable or necessary to achieve a political goal.

Good points wca. Thanks. It’s a little difficult to be simply skeptical all the time when it’s so easy to become cynical in daily exposure to such negative influences as lying, cheating, stealing and obfuscation. Jeez, it’s everywhere. I appreciate your input.

DavidK/Knutzandvolts
TY for the come back
As I said I am old/ok finacialy and can take care of myself – as
I have since forever. What about those of our brethern who have
no other choice? What choice do they or their dependents have?
Why can this have existed over the past decade or more with the
CIC for all those years giving lip service to the problem yet
nothing done. Who bought off our “veterans service groups” who,
because we no other voice, have been so silent until it became
a “news item” that they could use for fund raising/recruitment.
I believe they all go to the same cocktail parties and believe
that people like me and others like me will disappear and there will
be no more questions. Stonewall forever! and when that doesn’t work
do it some more.

It’s the culture and the media complicity in deceiving the public is unlike any I’ve seen in my lifetime.

workingclass artist on May 21, 2014 at 8:48 AM

I believe you.

People whisper, now. They look over their shoulders. They think they can be purged at work and ostracized socially, just for common sense.

And they’re right. The Brendan Eich case shows you can be forced out for having thought that marriage should be between a man and a woman. That’s crazy. That’s more thought control than they had in the later days of the Soviet Union.

Late, I know, but thank you very much RWM for the photos. Brings back many happy memories of my childhood, and my first car – the Morris Eight tourer that my father passed on to me when he moved over to Lanchesters.

ENOUGH WITH IMMIGRATION REFORM! Look GOPe you have the economy, Obamacare, various scandals to attack Obama and the Dems with. Why do you keep insisting on this constant back n forth on immigration? Just stop it! Next year when you hold both houses you will thank me for this advice. Signed disgusted Conservative voter.

Why when the majority of Americans DO NOT WANT amnesty in any form, shape or condition does Boehner keep pushing it? Why, indeed, did Ohioans re-elected this Obama butt kisser? Boehner always gives in and the House let’s him. Grow a pair, House members, and block Boehner and his desire to have foreign invaders given keys to our homes and lives and jobs! Kick him out of the Speaker position and get us a real Speaker who is a real Repub and not a Demo in Repub disguise. Enough is enough. Invading our soil was and is an Act of War – kick them and their attachments/families out now! If you don’t, watch out for re-election and recall coming up.

Why when the majority of Americans DO NOT WANT amnesty in any form, shape or condition does Boehner keep pushing it? Why, indeed, did Ohioans re-elected this Obama butt kisser? Boehner always gives in and the House let’s him. Grow a pair, House members, and block Boehner and his desire to have foreign invaders given keys to our homes and lives and jobs! Kick him out of the Speaker position and get us a real Speaker who is a real Repub and not a Demo in Repub disguise. Enough is enough. Invading our soil was and is an Act of War – kick them and their attachments/families out now! If you don’t, watch out for re-election and recall coming up.

Roselle on May 21, 2014 at 11:14 AM

I think these guys can see the end coming and they want to get out of it what they can. They no longer give a damn about us or the constitution or anything but their own bank accounts. They’ll put their money in a Swiss account and leave the country. Some of them will go along with the marxists. We can see that. This wouldn’t be happening if we had the Republicans behind us. Conservatives want to fix things but there aren’t enough of them and they have to battle their own party as well.

you have more faith than I…
the minute the Big Cities vote..
we lost many states …much like DC..
when Cleveland or Dayton or Cincinnati.. votes it doesn’t matter what you think..
here..its Detroit…
others..when Chicago votes it doesn’t matter what Peoria thinks..
when Pittsburg and Philly vote.. the coal country looses..
when NYC votes… Watertown is left behind..
even if my small town went 70-30 Repub
we would need hundreds of cities to go likewise to combat Detroit..
then there is Flint.. and Pontiac.. Lansing…
so we need thousands of small towns to go 70-30 with us..
simply put… the takers outnumber the makers…
you say ..DC is lost to us..
I am just adding …we’ve lost the Big Cities also…